In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  Willie no one took much notice of, a circumstance for which she was profoundly grateful. He gazed up at her with adoring eyes; at that moment he reminded her of a hound she had once owned. The dog had looked at her with just such a doting expression, a look that said its bearer wished only to please.

  “Thank you, Willie,” she whispered. A look of understanding passed between them, for which no words were needed; he arose, bowed again, and departed.

  As soon as the door closed, Seton rushed over and gazed in wonderment at the earring that Mary still held dangling between her finger and thumb. Mary reached into her bodice with her other hand and drew out its mate. She dare not wear them, and so the pair, reunited after being parted since March, went back into her bodice.

  “Oh, Your Grace,” whispered Seton. “At last, at last! By this time tomorrow, we shall be on our way to freedom.”

  Mary reached out a hand, into which Seton placed her own. Mary squeezed Seton’s hand in acknowledgement. Seton nodded and went to see to the fire; it would be needed again as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon and the evening wind turned chill.

  For the first time in weeks, hope stirred in her breast once more; perhaps this time, they would be successful.

  At first the only thing that had sustained her was the belief that her brother had lied about Bothwell’s Danish wife, and that he was indeed working to fulfill his promise to raise an army to deliver her from prison and restore her to her throne. But little by little, news had made its way to Loch Leven. Mary suspected that if any of the news had been good, it would not have been shared with her; but bad news was always delivered with a prompt, gloating vindictiveness by Lady Douglas. Bothwell now languished in a Danish prison, and would not be coming for her.

  Mary had always been fond of her half-siblings; she had many, for her father, King James V of Scotland, had had many mistresses. But Margaret Erskine had been his favorite mistress; she was the mother of her half-brother, James Stewart, the Earl of Moray. Lady Margaret had been married to a Douglas, but her husband was dead; her eldest son, Sir William Douglas, was the Earl of Morton, and half-brother to the Earl of Moray. Lady Douglas had always resented that Mary was the legitimate daughter of the king and was queen, whilst her James was illegitimate, and unable to succeed to the throne. Moray’s mother and his Douglas siblings were completely loyal to him. Her half-brother could not have found better gaolers for his deposed sister.

  The first few months of her imprisonment had been concerned with recovering her health. The miscarriage of Bothwell’s twins had sapped her of her natural vitality, and the news that Bothwell was lost to her had served only to depress her spirits even further.

  At first, she had been housed in the royal apartments; Loch Leven Castle had often been used as a royal hunting lodge. James had relented so far as to send some of her dresses, and that had brightened her mood somewhat; children did grow up, and whatever she was not, she was still the mother of the King of Scotland. But he had confiscated all of her jewels, even the ones she had brought with her from France and which were indisputably her own. The only trinkets she had now were those that Seton had taken with her on that fateful day at Carberry Hill, and which she was supposed to have donned for her triumphant ride into Edinburgh. That had turned out to be anything but a glorious occasion, and so Seton had kept them hidden for fear that Lady Douglas would confiscate them if she knew of them.

  Lady Douglas was the soul of spite, and had insisted that, Queen Mother or not, Mary was not to be treated with any partiality. She would take her meals in the Hall with everyone else. Mary smiled to herself to think how badly that plan had backfired! Everyone in the castle, men and women, lord and servant, were in complete awe of the beautiful queen. For whether she was called queen or not, that is what she had always been and it was hard to simply stop thinking of her that way. And as always, that indefinable quality that some called charm, for lack of any more apt description, came to the fore. The women doted upon her, and the men admired her beauty and graceful movements. Everyone who came into contact with her, excepting only Lady Douglas, who was strangely immune to her indescribable charisma, fawned upon her shamelessly. Before Lady Douglas could realize her mistake, all of her sons were enamored of the beautiful captive queen, and all the women simply dreamed of being her, prisoner or not; oh, to have that milk-white skin, that wealth of auburn hair, those glittering green eyes, and that magic fascination!

  It was not long before the two youngest boys, George, who was sixteen and legitimate, and Willie, who was fourteen and one of Sir William’s bye-blows, were hopelessly in love with Mary and plotting to help her escape. As always, male attention acted as a tonic to Mary, and her health improved rapidly. But there could be no escape in the wintertime; too many things might go wrong, and the weather would almost surely be against them. And so all through that autumn and winter, Mary held her little court at remote Loch Leven and by springtime, a viable plan had emerged.

  It was not poor George’s fault that the plan failed. He had arranged for Mary to be dressed as a laundress and rowed the small distance across the loch from the castle to the shore. All had seemed fair fit to succeed, and then the boatman had noticed that Mary had unusually white hands for a laundress. Back to the castle he had rowed. There had been a furious row; George had been banished from the castle, Moray had come storming up from Edinburgh, and Mary had been removed from the royal apartments and installed in the more secure Glassen Tower. She was no longer allowed to roam the island, and was permitted no visitors. All but two of her servants had been sent away.

  Life had seemed bleak until Lord Ruthven, one of the men who guarded her, had fallen in love with her. He promised to come up with a better escape plan than poor young George’s. After all, Mary had twice married the man of her choice, one her own subject; why should she not marry Lord Ruthven, if he could free her from her captivity? Unlike Darnley and Bothwell, he had no ambition; the idea of being king frightened him. He wanted only to serve his queen. The fact that he was the son of the Lord Ruthven who had held that loaded pistol to her belly and who had helped to murder Rizzio was by-the-by; his father was dead and he was loyal to no one but Mary. But in the course of his plotting, he spoke too freely; Sir William soon became aware of this newest plan to free his unwelcome prisoner, and Lord Ruthven was sent back to Edinburgh in disgrace.

  Hope died again for a while, and then one day young Willie brought a load of fire wood to the top turret room in the Glassen Tower. Though illegitimate, he had been accepted by the family; whatever he was not, he was a Douglas, and clan feeling was strong. Young Willie had been educated along with the other Douglases, and could read and write, even though many thought him half-witted. He was a singularly silent boy, but his silence was not due to any lack of intelligence. He simply spent more time observing the world around him that speaking to it.

  The basket of logs contained a letter to the queen from George, who, banished from the island, had not been idle; he had ridden far and wide gathering support for the queen and had assembled a formidable force. If between them he and Willie could effect the queen’s escape, she would once again have an army behind her.

  And so now George and many Scottish lords still loyal to her hid in close proximity to the loch. Willie, unsuspected by anyone, was not only free of the castle, but able to go ashore whenever he liked; he worked with George and the Scottish lords to devise the means of her escape. A new plan was now in place; the pearl earring that Willie had delivered that day was the signal that she had been waiting for; she must be ready to escape the next day.

  Mary placed her hand over her heart, where the precious pearls lay. How would she ever sleep through the night?

  ###

  The day had been very fine; the May Day celebrations had occupied everyone to the exclusion of all else. Diversions of any kind were few and far between; life on the tiny island in the middle of the loch was singularly dull, even for those for whom it was not a prison. Mary had be
en permitted to join in the hilarity, but she had drunk no ale. She must keep her wits about her and be sharp for what was about to happen. But now the day was drawing to a close and everyone else was sated with food and drink. Even Sir William was nodding where he sat at the table in the great hall.

  As near as she could judge the time, she must now make her excuses and retire. But not to her rooms in the Glassen Tower; she would ask permission to go to her prayers in the chapel. The request aroused little interest and no suspicion; she withdrew, with Janet and Seton following in her wake.

  Once in the chapel, Mary did take time to kneel and pray, but not the usual rote prayers; all of her nerves were taut with anticipation of what the next moments, the next hours, would bring. Freedom? Ignominious capture once again? All she could do was to repeat in her head, over and over again, Please God, let me once again be free. She hastily crossed herself and arose.

  It was now or never; trusting to the fact that the inhabitants of the island were now lulled into a post-celebratory lethargy, Mary, Seton and Janet walked to the postern gate. If they were challenged, the game would be up before it began. But there was no other way. Loch Leven Castle sat upon an island so small that it barely contained the structure and its associated outbuildings. There was no cover to be had between the castle and shore where the boats were kept. But the very fact that the three women walked as though they had business ashore lent a certain legitimacy to their departure, should anyone be watching.

  Willie would be waiting in the boat to row them ashore; he had disabled all the other boats, so if they gained the loch, there could be no pursuit. Mary walked, trying hard not to run, her eyes riveted on the shore where the boat lay waiting, bobbing gently on the current. Her steps were steady and sure. They reached the grass verge; they gained the tiny, rocky beach. They were in the boat, which was small and very flat; it had practically no draft. Willie had chosen an old dinghy; it was nothing to look at, but it was the fastest of the boats that were always moored near the little dock. The wind rose as they pushed off. The scraping of the boat sliding off the rocks into the water was the sweetest sound that Mary had ever heard. Willie said nothing; he simply began rowing for all he was worth. A second set of oars lay in the bottom of the boat; Mary seized them, tossed one to Janet, and they added their efforts to Willie’s.

  After what seemed like hours but was in reality only a few minutes, Mary felt the boat hit solid land on the opposite shore. As if by magic a host of men appeared; they had all been concealed behind shrubbery and trees and what other shelter was afforded. It was dusk and the inhabitants of the little village had retired for the evening meal.

  George, John Beaton, and other men faithful to the queen had watched anxiously as the little boat left the opposite shore and made its way across the choppy waters of the loch. As soon as Mary’s feet touched the shore, George emerged from his hiding place leading a magnificent dapple gray with a creamy mane and tail.

  “Oh, Georgie!” cried Mary, her eyes swimming with tears. “I can never thank you.”

  “There is no time, Your Grace,” he said breathlessly. “We must ride.”

  If there was one thing she had missed above all others save her freedom these past ten months, it was the ability to mount a horse and ride when and where she pleased. Willie bent and clasped his hands; Mary placed a delicate foot into his hands and gracefully swung herself up into the saddle. “I know this horse,” she said. “Is this not…?”

  George smiled his wry, lopsided smile. “Indeed, it is,” he said.

  Many was the time that Mary had gazed wistfully out of the window of her prison room in the castle tower as Sir William was rowed across the loch to the opposite shore in one of the little boats, and had mounted this very horse. What delicious irony that she should now be escaping his custody upon the very same animal!

  And so it was that against a magnificent red and golden sunset, with great gray, silver-lined clouds rearing up to Heaven as if they were themselves a splendid city, the Queen of Scotland galloped south to freedom.

  Chapter 11

  “[Mary] appeared in her element in such situations, on horseback,

  riding hell bent for leather on some clandestine journey, or leading

  a body of armed men in pursuit of revenge or freedom.”

  -Jane Dunn, “Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens”

  Niddry Castle, May 1568

  T he sun was just coming up over the horizon when Mary opened her eyes. A sound arrested her attention; it was the soft, comforting bleating of sheep. There were no sheep on Loch Leven Island; it was too small to sustain them. She had missed the soothing sounds they made, just as she would have missed the cooing of the doves, had there been no dovecote. Just for an instant she knew a moment of confusion; she did not know where she was. And then, just as the golden light of dawn burst forth and flooded the room, she recalled the events of the day before. I am free, she thought. Free! For the first time in almost a year, she could arise, order her day, do as she pleased. Free! Only for one who had suffered the loss of their freedom could the word have so much significance.

  She had fled Loch Leven in the dress of a servant. It was far too risky to attempt an escape dressed as the queen, and so she had had to leave all of her rich clothing behind. She had no jewels except the pearl earrings that had been the harbinger of her liberty. But no matter. Soon she would defeat her enemies and then she would once again dress as the queen she was.

  Only God knew how sweet such revenge would taste! And that vengeance would be all the more satisfying every time she remembered that it was her traitorous half-brother’s own relations who had betrayed him, for her. What delicious irony that it was James’s own kith and kin who were the instruments of her daring escape and its resultant freedom. Dear George! Dear Willie! They had burnt their bridges, and no mistake; she would have to care for them, now and for the rest of their lives. How glad she would make them that they had stood by their rightful queen, even against their own blood, their own clan.

  In unguarded moments it still had the power to wound her deeply that the Jamie she had known in childhood could have betrayed her so evilly. James, a lordly eleven years her senior, had been almost like a father to her; she who had never known their father. The father who had greeted the birth of a female heir with such bitter words!

  So this time she must succeed, not only so that she could visit her revenge upon her brother, but because she knew with a deadly certainty that never, never again could she endure imprisonment. Death would be preferable. Soon James would taste the bitterness that was the loss of one’s personal freedom. For she would not have him executed, oh no; she would cage him as he had caged her, perhaps on a remote island in a stone castle in the Orkneys or the Shetlands, doomed never to walk upon green grass again!

  It had been sheer torture for her to sit at her window day after day at Loch Leven Castle, watching the birds as they flew, dipping and wheeling over the loch, only to finally fly away and disappear to parts unknown; to watch the castle’s inhabitants going unhindered about their business, hither and yon, back and forth, to and fro, from the island to the shore and back again in the little boats. This time, she would prevail and then Jamie would know the sheer despair that she had known, that Bothwell must now know in his Danish prison, of not being able to make one’s own decisions anymore, of never being allowed to come and go as one pleased, to be denied even the pleasure of choosing what one should eat!

  Mary turned over in the bed so that she could see out of the window. Her movements were lithe and nimble; any other woman would have been stiff and sore from the wild ride she had made the night before from Loch Leven to Queen’s Ferry, especially after ten months of forced inactivity. But the heady feeling of having fooled her captors, the exhilaration of having loyal followers ready to risk all for her cause and her crown, the satisfying sensation of having a swift horse between her knees again, had all acted as a tonic to her. So excited, so enthusiastic was she
at achieving her liberty, that surely she had ridden the twenty miles from Loch Leven to Queen’s Ferry in less time than anyone had ever done! George, Willie, Lord Seton, John Beaton, and many other men loyal to her cause had flanked or followed her as they fled, riding like the wind, south to the firth.

  Although the light was beginning to fade as they rode, it was still just before dusk when they had crossed the choppy waters of the firth and landed on the southern side. The welcome sight of Lord Hamilton and fully fifty other lords loyal to her cause, who had all been there to meet her and escort her to Niddry Castle, brought tears to her eyes. The clatter of horses through the villages on the last leg of their journey from Queensferry Crossing to Lord Seton’s castle of Niddry had attracted the attention of the populace in every place through which they rode. There was no need for secrecy; her treacherous half-brother would know soon enough that she had at last slipped through his perfidious net; and he would be under no illusions as to what her next move would be. Lord Seton, John Beaton and the rest of the loyal men who had met her at the dock had promised her an army and she had no doubt that soon she would have one.

  And so as they passed through the little hamlets, her men had shouted, “Make way for the queen!” and the villagers had cried in reply, “Long live the queen!” It was uncertain how many of them had simply been caught up in the excitement of the moment, but their cheers heartened her; and anyway, she was now in an area of the country that was indisputably loyal to her.

  It was midnight before they reached Niddry, one of Lord Seton’s own castles, but the castellan had been ready for them; there was hot water, hot food, and much unbridled joy that her escape from Loch Leven had been successful. In anticipation of the queen’s arrival, Marie, Lady Seton, who had been one of her mother’s own ladies, had prepared for her all the delicate garments a queen would need, and had had several gowns made to her measure. Mary was delighted; her favorite of the dresses now hung on a peg waiting for her to don it.